Ok, for those of you who haven't heard yet ... Amy and I have called off the wedding and have broken up. It was a tough decision but it was mutual and I think we both feel like it was the right one. Thanks in advance to all of you for your friendship, we look forward to seeing you next time our paths cross.

Monday, December 03, 2001

Looks like I'm finally heading back to Delhi! Planning to fly out 12/20 and stay through New Year's. Then I'll be back in Denver for ~4 weeks.

It's been pretty cold here in Denver, and there's been snow on the ground (in patches now) for a couple of weeks.

Drove up to Estes Park yesterday just to check it out (and get out of Denver for a bit), and saw a ton of elk grazing along the road - very cool. The mountains were amazing, and the drive was very relaxing.

Not too much going on; lots of work to get through this week, so that I have more time to spend with Ken when he arrives on Monday!!

Oh, and I'm moving apartments this week, since Pam (my roommate) is going back to SF. I'll be moving into a single, since there aren't any other female travelers. I guess it'll be good to have to clean stuff out a bit before I go back to Delhi.

Sunday, December 02, 2001

It's been so long since I've been 100% healthy I almost can't remember what it feels like. I'm feeling better now but still have cold symptoms and occasional cold spells. Ahh well, now it is all about me getting healthy in Las Vegas (seems like an oxymoron doesn't it?).

Monday, November 26, 2001

If you want someone to do something for you in India you should only ask for one thing at a time. As good as their english appears their ability to really understand complex conversations is often limited. Why am I writting this? Well to help of course. Why now? Well, I was feeling very cold and I asked my cook to pick up a space heater at the store. At the last minute I asked him to pick up coffee in the store next door. I saw the lights really go on at that point. We'd talked about the coffee last week. Now he was off. He came back 40 minutes later to tell me that the coffee shop wouldn't sell him a space heater. No shit . Oh well, second times a charm. He's off again. I really hope he gets one this time as I am quite cold (although I need to take my temperature because it may just be me that's the problem).

Amy is back in Austin this weekend tasting food for our wedding reception. I wish I could be there.

I think I know what my travel plans are for the my early December Bachalor Party/Holiday Party (in Denver w/ Amy) trip. The plan is to leave Delhi on Thursday, December 6th and arrive later that day in Vegas. I'd be in Vegas through Sunday and then hop on a plane to Denver. I'd stay in Denver all week and then leave on Monday or Tuesday depending on how much time Amy can take off. Then I fly back but I'm hoping to navigate through Hong Kong and have a day or two there on the way back. The last part may not make sense but that's what I'm aiming for.

My plans to go to Hong Kong this weekend fell through. My "waiting till the last minute" tendency only gave me really expensive flights (north of $1000), really awkward flights (stop overs and long layovers taking most of the weekend away), or a direct flight on Indian Airlines (IA). IA, however, is a risky choice. It's aircraft aircraft are very old and it's track record way below average. I just said no.

Diwali just passed this Wednesday. It is considered the biggest Indian celebration of the year, comprable to Christianities' Christmas in religious significance. As far as how it is celebrated it feels like a cross between Christmas and the 4th of July: there is gift giving and an incredible number of fireworks that are exploded. There isn't the US equivalent of an organized fireworks display but rather everyone is loaded to the teeth with their own personal fireworks, it's pretty crazy the number of explotions that take place.

Regarding gift giving I needed to find out what responsibilities I had to my cook, driver, and other help. I asked around the office and got slightly different answers but what emerged as a pattern was that money and sweets are the lingua franca of gift giving and that whatever monetary amount you chose make sure it is some nice round number + 1 (the "1" is for good luck). So I decided to give our driver and cook 1001 rupees each and a box of chocolates. My driver was nice enough to get me a box of sweets too. Unfortunately on Wednesday I was tired so I forgot to get anything for our security guard. He didn't forget. He insisted on bringing my bag upstairs for me and then clearly was waiting for his present. Jeez. Well I didn't have one so I said thank you and good night. The next day my cook informed me that the security guard wanted to "remind me" that today was Diwali. Merciless. Ok, so I decided to be sneaky and I re-packaged my driver's sweets gift as a gift to the security guard and gave him the same 1001rs. He was psyched. I guess that was sort of a mistake because he get's gifts from each of the three floors and also makes considerably less money than a cook or driver (the gift giving is normally prorated by how much a person's salary is). Oh well. Then it hit me. Shit we have two security guards, one for the AM the other for the PM. This was getting expensive. I gave the PM guard 1001rs but no chocolates. Then the garbage boy stopped by and asked for a gift. Are you kidding me?!? Well I gave him 101rs. Fontunately that was it for people I actually had to deal with but according to my cook the phone company stopped by looking for handouts wheh I was out. Can you believe that? This is the same phone company who hasn't been able to install international dialing on our phone for 3 months and I guess they are also paid off by Sapient for Diwali so they really aren't supposed to stop by.